Minnesota Lawyer
“I think it’s a smart move by Dayton,” said Dean Barkley, who ran Jesse Ventura’s 1998 campaign for governor. “It’s kind of an acknowledgement of the obvious: that the two sides are so different as far as their approaches to governing go that they need somebody to come in and maybe take some of the flak.” (Staff photo: Peter Bartz-Gallagher)
Gov. Mark Dayton has suggested a novel approach to ending the protracted impasse over the state’s $5 billion budget deficit and averting a government shutdown. Under the Dayton administration’s shutdown blueprint, filed in Ramsey County District Court earlier this month, an outside mediator would be appointed to help drive the parties toward a resolution. The two possible budget referees suggested by the DFL governor: former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz and former Minnesota Supreme Court Associate Justice James Gilbert.
Blatz spent 16 years in the House as a Republican and was appointed to the state’s top court in 1996 by GOP Gov. Arne Carlson. Gilbert was also nominated to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court by Carlson and currently runs a mediation firm in Eden Prairie.
“I think it’s a smart move by Dayton,” said Dean Barkley, who ran Jesse Ventura’s successful 1998 gubernatorial campaign and has consulted with numerous third-party candidates. “It’s kind of an acknowledgement of the obvious: that the two sides are so different as far as their approaches to governing go that they need somebody to come in and maybe take some of the flak. I just don’t see how this is going to be resolved any other way.”
Ramsey County District Court Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin is scheduled to hold a hearing on shutdown preparations on Thursday, just one week before the state government is slated to close. Gearin will play a crucial role in determining which government services will continue to function if a shutdown proceeds.
Legal odds long
But political and legal experts believe that the mediator suggestion is highly unlikely to be adopted by the court. That’s in part because the Republican-led Legislature is not a party in the matter before Gearin, and she cannot therefore order them to participate in mediation. “If they don’t appear and intervene, the judge wouldn’t have any power to order them to mediate,” said Fred Morrison, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who specializes in constitutional matters.
In addition, Republicans have so far dismissed the mediation suggestion, arguing that it would amount to a shirking of their responsibilities as elected officials. “To get real mediation going, you’ve got to have both sides willing to do it,” Morrison noted. “If one side is dead set against it, then it’s just a waste of time.”
Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, further argues that a judicial order requiring mediation would be unprecedented. “I can’t think of anything even close to it,” Jacobs said. “Mediation on a budget dispute? Where’s that in the Constitution?”
Jacobs is not surprised that Republicans have rejected mediation. “Any mediation is going to require both sides to make concessions,” Jacobs said. “It’s going to force Republicans to move off their kind of bright-line position of no new taxes.”
The battle for public sentiment
But even if court-ordered mediation is a nonstarter, that doesn’t necessarily mean that floating the idea won’t prove useful for Dayton in the budget debate. Capitol Report surveyed 10 political strategists and public relations specialists on the strategy, and the majority deemed the idea a cagey political move by the governor. That’s in part because both of Dayton’s choices for possible referees in the dispute come with GOP track records. In addition, it allows the governor to appear flexible in terms of the ultimate outcome of the budget standoff while Republicans remain hunkered down with their no-new-taxes stance.
Bill Hillsman, founder of North Woods Advertising, views the move as simple gamesmanship by Dayton. “I don’t know how serious Dayton is about this proposal,” said Hillsman, who earned a national reputation for creating innovative campaign ads for Ventura and Sen. Paul Wellstone. “But it looks good from a PR standpoint. … It’s a nice publicity stunt for Dayton.”
Paul Maccabee, president of the Maccabee Group public relations firm in Minneapolis, agrees with that assessment. “From a PR standpoint, it’s brilliant,” Maccabee said, noting the GOP pedigrees of Blatz and Gilbert. “It’s very hard for Republicans now to say that this is just partisan politics.”
Not all strategists agree that Dayton’s call for a mediator is a wise move politically. John Wodele, who served as director of communications in the Ventura administration, says it makes the governor look weak. “I’m not sure it’s the wisest PR move for an elected executive,” said Wodele, who now runs a St. Paul-based marketing firm. “That’s why we elect them.”
Jennifer DeJournett, president of the GOP-friendly advocacy group VOICES of Conservative Women, shares that assessment. DeJournett says she recently floated the mediation idea at the nonideological gathering of her Bunco club, and it received a tepid response. “They thought that was ridiculous,” she said. “They were like, ‘Why did we elect him?’”
Darin Broton, a DFL strategist with Tunheim Partners, has a different reason for dismissing the idea: The public isn’t paying attention to the finer details of the budget debate. “I just don’t think the general public has even considered it or is even thinking about it,” Broton said of the mediation proposal. “I think the public is just focused on the governor and the Legislature duking it out.”
